Monday, June 12, 2017

Man Accused of Death Threats to Lawyers Suing Fox News

A computer repairman from Las Vegas was charged on Friday in Manhattan with threatening to kill New York lawyers who have filed an anti-discrimination suit on behalf of 11 black employees at Fox News, the police and prosecutors said.

Douglas Wigdor

According to The NYTimes, the repairman, Joseph D. Amico, 46, was arraigned in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on three counts of making terrorist threats and one count of aggravated harassment, a day after being extradited from Nevada. Justice Laura Ward ordered him held until a bail hearing on Monday.

Jeanne Christensen

On April 26, Mr. Amico made several calls to Wigdor L.L.P., the firm representing the Fox News employees. He threatened to blow up the firm’s Fifth Avenue office and to shoot its partners for pursuing the suit against Fox News, lacing his comments with derogatory comments about blacks, Lt. Paul Ng, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said.

The calls started shortly after the lawyers, Douglas H. Wigdor and Jeanne M. Christensen, appeared with the plaintiffs in a televised news conference announcing a class-action tort, alleging that Fox News executives tolerated “abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful and hostile racial discrimination” in the workplace.

The lawsuit contends that Fox News employees repeatedly complained about racial discrimination to executives but that no action was taken. A separate lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan made similar claims. Fox News has denied the allegations.

The broadcast of the news conference infuriated Mr. Amico, the police said.